12.31.09

Coming on the heels of the killing spree by Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, the latest terrorist “incident,” involving Abdul Mutallab on Northwest Flight 253, is yet another isolated but tell-tale sign that we must learn from:

1) If solidly middle-class Westernized Muslims mouth the al-Qaeda line of radical Islamic, anti-American boilerplate, please take them seriously — i.e., worry less about their feelings and more about the lives of innocents they may in the future seek to annihilate. The more upscale and the more the Western exposure, the more there is to worry about.

2) For the last eight years, many have patiently tried to suggest that the answer to “Why do they hate us?” does not entail poverty, Western imperialism or colonialism, support for Israel, past provocations, etc. Rather, radical Islam encourages in an Hasan or Mutallab age-old passions like pride, envy, and a sense of inferiority — all accelerated by instantaneous communications and abetted by continual Western apologetics that on a global level blame Westerners for self-induced misery in many Islamic countries. “They did it” is far easier than looking inward to address tribalism, gender apartheid, statism, autocracy, religious intolerance, and fundamentalism, which in perfect-storm fashion ensure an impoverished — and resentful and angry — radical Islamic community while the rest of the world moves merrily on.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska’s political deal from the federal health care reform bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press Wednesday.

“We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed,” South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent Wednesday night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“As chief legal officers of our states we are contemplating a legal challenge to this provision and we ask you to take action to render this challenge unnecessary by striking that provision,” they wrote.

In a rare Christmas Eve vote, Senate Democrats pushed sweeping health care legislation to the brink of Senate passage, crushing a year-end Republican filibuster against President Barack Obama’s call to remake the nation’s health care system. The 60-39 vote marked the third time in as many days Democrats posted a supermajority needed to advance the legislation.

The letter was signed by top prosecutors in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington state. All are Republicans, and McMaster and the attorneys general of Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania are running for governor in their respective states.

Last week, McMaster said he was leading several other attorneys general in an inquiry into the constitutionality of the estimated $100 million deal he has dubbed the “Cornhusker Kickback.”

Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint of South Carolina raised questions about the legislation, which they said was amended to win Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson’s support.

“Because this provision has serious implications for the country and the future of our nation’s legislative process, we urge you to take appropriate steps to protect the Constitution and the rights of the citizens of our nation,” the attorneys general wrote.

12.30.09

Tea-party leaders are delivering a bold ultimatum to all congressional candidates in 2010: Pledge to repeal the health-care reform bill in its entirety if it passes – or you will be booted from office.

FreedomWorks Press Secretary Adam Brandon told WND the message couldn’t be any clearer. Asked whether he believes the tea party movement will seek to oust politicians who refuse to repeal the legislation, he emphatically declared, “Absolutely.”

Max Pappas, vice president of FreedomWorks, echoed Brandon’s statements in an interview with Gary Sargent, Washington blogger for the Plum Line, this week.

“This has an unusual ability to be repealed, and the public is on that side.” he said. “The Republicans are going to have to prove that they are worthy of their votes.”

Both Brandon and Pappas emphasized that Congress must try to repeal the whole bill if it passes.

Brandon said most people are opposed to the bill’s requirement that citizens pay a fine if they don’t maintain insurance for themselves and their families. Under the current bills, the government will also collect taxes for 10 years, but only pay out benefits for the last six years. As WND reported, majority Democrats in the U.S. Senate have inserted in the fine print a provision that it would take a supermajority of 67 votes in the Senate for future legislative bodies to even consider amendments to its provisions for “death panels.”

Other serious concerns about the current legislation include possible health-care rationing, denial of treatment, substantial cost increases and stifling of medical innovation.

Also, the Senate bill provides that Medicare fees for doctors would be cut by 20 percent beginning in 2011, but the Heritage Foundation notes, “Nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen.” If the cuts don’t take place, it would result in an added $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the following one, according to Congressional Budget Office calculations.

As WND reported, FreedomWorks is partnering with the American Liberty Alliance and several other groups to launch a massive Tax Day tea party at the White House Ellipse on April 15, 2010.

“We’re delivering this one right to the White House,” Brandon said. “It could spill out over into the Washington Monument, so it’ll be a hell of a visual.”

Brandon said FreedomWorks has been told “legislative entrepreneurs” are already planning a Senate bill calling for repeal of the health-care legislation, should it pass.

“That means there will be something we can start to rally around in 2010,” he said. “We’re going to remind them every step of the way that this bill was a real stinker.”

He said Democrats plan to tell the electorate this year: “We said we were going to do this, and we did it.”

“They passed a terrible bill. Not only was it a terrible bill, but it was a disgusting process to watch,” Brandon said. “It was almost like they were playing mafia with taxpayer dollars.”

The only thing healthy about Congress’ health insurance legislation is the healthy skepticism about it by most of the public, as revealed by polls. What is most unhealthy about this legislation is the raw arrogance in the way it was conceived and passed.

Supporters of government health insurance call its passage “historic.” Past attempts to pass such legislation– going back for decades– failed repeatedly. But now both houses of Congress have passed government health care legislation and it is just a question of reconciling their respective bills and presenting President Obama with a political “victory.”

In short, this is not about improving the health of the American people. It is about passing something– anything– to keep the Obama administration from ending up with egg on its face by being unable to pass a bill, after so much hype and hoopla. Politically, looking impotent is a formula for disaster at election time. Far better to pass even bad legislation that will not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election, so that the public will not know whether it makes medical care better or worse until it is too late for the voters to hold the administration accountable.

The utter cynicism of this has been apparent from the outset, in the rush to pass a health care bill in a hurry, in order to meet wholly arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines. First it was supposed to be passed before the August 2009 Congressional recess. Then it was supposed to be passed before Labor Day. When that didn’t happen, it was supposed to be rushed to passage before Christmas.

Why– especially since the legislation would not take effect until years from now?

The only rational explanation for such haste to pass a bill that will be slow to go into effect is to prevent the public from knowing what is in this massive legislation that even members of Congress are unlikely to have read. That is also the only reason that makes sense for postponing the time when Obamacare goes into action after the next presidential election.

What does calling this medical care legislation “historic” mean? It means that previous administrations gave up the idea when it became clear that the voting public did not want government control of medical care. What is “historic” is that this will be the first administration to show that it doesn’t care one bit what the public wants or doesn’t want.

In short, this is not about the public’s health. It is about Obama’s ego and his chance to impose his will and leave a legacy.

12.29.09

Friday’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner by a British-educated Islamist was foiled by the bravery of its passengers and crew. We cannot assume that we will be lucky next time. And the indications are that there will be a next time. According to police sources, 25 British-born Muslims are currently in Yemen being trained in the art of bombing planes. But most of these terrorists did not acquire their crazed beliefs in the Islamic world: they were indoctrinated in Britain. Indeed, thousands of young British Muslims support the use of violence to further the Islamist cause – and this despite millions of pounds poured by the Government into projects designed to prevent Islamic extremism.

Is it time for a fundamental rethink of Britain’s attitude towards domestic Islamism? Consider this analogy. Suppose that, in several London universities, Right‑wing student societies were allowed to invite neo-Nazi speakers to address teenagers. Meanwhile, churches in poor white neighbourhoods handed over their pulpits to Jew-hating admirers of Adolf Hitler, called for the execution of homosexuals, preached the intellectual inferiority of women, and blessed the murder of civilians. What would the Government do? It would bring the full might of the criminal law against activists indoctrinating young Britons with an inhuman Nazi ideology – and the authorities that let them. Any public servants complicit in this evil would be hounded from their jobs.

Jihadist Islamism is also a murderous ideology, comparable to Nazism in many respects. The British public realises this; so do the intelligence services. Yet because it arises out of a worldwide religion – most of whose followers are peaceful – politicians and the public sector shrink from treating its ideologues as criminal supporters of violence. Instead, the Government throws vast sums of money at the Muslim community in order to ensure that what is effectively a civil war between extremists and moderates is won by the latter. This policy – supported by all the main political parties – does not seem to be working. The authorities, lacking specialist knowledge, sometimes turn for advice to “moderate” Muslims who have extreme sympathies; supporters of al-Qaeda are paid to disseminate their ideology to young people.

Radical Islamist leaders are not stupid: they know how to play this system. The indoctrination of students carries on under the noses of public servants who are terrified of being labelled Islamophobic or racist. Therefore they fail to do their duty, which is to protect Muslims and non-Muslims alike from a terrorist ideology. If providing that protection requires fewer “consultations” with “community leaders” and more arrests, then so be it.

Next year could well mark the beginning of the end of the Democratic Party as we have known it since 1972.

That was the year the George McGovernites took over the party. It has never been the same since.

McGovern was the presidential nominee that year – a man who called for an immediate end to the Vietnam War and a federally guaranteed minimum annual salary of $10,000.

It was a radical departure from what had previously been the party of Hubert Humphrey and John Kennedy, liberals in the traditional sense but hardly radicals.

In 1976, the party faithful attempted to return to the center with the nomination of Jimmy Carter, but they unwittingly elected an impostor in the mold of McGovern. Democrats have not had an opportunity to vote for a true moderate for president since.

In electing Barack Obama as president last year, Democrats got the radical party activists they have been seeking ever since 1972 – a man completely out of step with American ideals of free enterprise, strong defense and personal freedom.

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court, it might appear that the party is in the political driver’s seat. But it is actually on the precipice of a historic setback that could force Democrats to re-evaluate their most basic ideals or face a realignment that could shatter the party’s shaky coalition for years to come.

The polls tell the story.

Obama’s approval rating has fallen significantly below 50 percent in his first year and much lower among critical independent voters.

After one year in office, Obama is charging ahead with an agenda that scarcely even has the support of most Democrats. While he has three more years in office, his party is set to lose much if not all of its control in Congress in 2010, with even party leaders like Harry Reid facing certain judgment day at the polls.

Even Democratic leaders who supported Obama early on are sending out public smoke signals warning of the disaster the party faces because of the radical agenda of those in power.

12.28.09

The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen. It was there London-educated Umar Abdulmutallab, 23, prepared for his Christmas Day bid to blow up a US jet.

The British extremists in Yemen are in their early 20s and from Bradford, Luton and Leytonstone, East London.
They are due to return to the UK early in 2010 and will then await internet instructions from al-Qaeda on when to strike. A Scotland Yard source said: “The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of many ready to attack planes and kill tens of thousands. “We know there are four or five radicalised British Muslim cells in the Yemen. They are due back within months when they will be under constant surveillance.”

The 25 suspects, of Pakistani and Somali descent, were radicalised in UK mosques. Some had been to university and studied engineering or computer sciences. Others were former street gang members.

The Independent of London has a piece up today on the wealthy, pampered lifestyle of would-be Christmas Day bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The Nigerian elite enginnering student studied at one of Britain’s leading universities, “lived a gilded life” and “stayed in a £2m flat.”

The Independent says Abdulmatallab’s privileged status is “surprising” — “a very different background to many of the other al-Qa’ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.”

Actually, there’s nothing surprising about it. The only surprise is that so many supposedly informed people — from British journalists to our own commander-in-chief — continue to perpetuate the myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist.

Abdulmutallab isn’t the first terrorist admitted to a Western institution of higher learning who spread fundamentalist Islam on campus.

*Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesburo, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract–ahem–wealthy Middle Easterners. At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Mohammed applied his Western learning to oversee the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast that killed nearly 200 tourists, including two more Americans.

(See “How Khalid Learned His ABCs,” NRO, Marc h 3, 2003)

*Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He had a medical degree. So did former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi.

*Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis.

* Osama bin Laden did a summer school stint at Oxford.

* 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta went to Hamburg University to study urban planning.

*British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a London School of Economics graduate, was convicted of abducting and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl.

As I noted last summer, Barack Obama clings, like so many willfully blind, to the myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist in the face of years and years of contrary evidence. The “essence” of the 9/11 “tragedy,” he wrote days after that attack, “grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.”
This woeful misdiagnosis allows the apologist to treat deliberate, carefully planned evil acts of the long-waged Islamic war on the West as responses to social injustice.

Isn’t it time, once and for all, to banish the jihadi-as-victim canard to the trash bin of deadly dhimmitude?

An attempted jihad attack on Christmas Day has revealed that Americans are much more vulnerable to such attacks than most have believed – while government officials whistle in the dark. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 just before it landed in Detroit. In response, Barack Obama chose not to cut short his golfing vacation in Hawaii; the White House announced that he would “likely” have something to say about this latest attempted jihad attack on U.S. soil “in the next few days.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was ebullient, maintaining that “the system worked” and “everything happened that should have.”

Unless the “system” was consisted of relying on passengers to tackle jihadists (as Jasper Schuringa, the Dutch passenger on Flight 253, subdued Abdulmutallab), and trusting that jihadis’ detonators will malfunction (as did Abdulmutallab’s), Napolitano’s statement couldn’t possibly be farther from the truth. In reality, nothing worked. Nothing at all, both in terms of security procedures for individual air passengers, and in terms of the larger strategy for dealing with jihad terrorism.

All the stupid and humiliating airport security procedures, all the little baggies for toothpaste and shampoo, all the padding through the security scanner in stocking feet, didn’t work. Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane with the makings of a bomb that would have destroyed the aircraft and killed everyone in it. The Transportation Security Administration has scrambled since Christmas Day to stiffen security procedures, but its effort is foredoomed: jihadis study these procedures carefully, always searching for ways to circumvent them. And such ways exist, even if every passenger were subjected to a full body cavity search – bomb ingredients can be separated and combined mid-flight, or spirited onboard in ways as yet unimagined by the most visionary TSA official.

Abdulmutallib was also on a terror watch list, although that fact, and the fact that he had been known to anti-terror officials for several years, did not prevent him from boarding Flight 253 – showing that such lists and even official scrutiny are as useless as taking off your shoes in the airport security line. What’s more, the jihadi’s father warned American officials about his son, who was being watched already. And still nothing was done to keep him from boarding the plane.

What world does Obama live in? I sure wish it was ours. But anyway…
As I scan through various news articles about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas day, once again, I find no mention of this man’s Muslims ties. Nothing at all.
So the press covers up his Muslims ties and Obama is off living in Lala Land believing that airport security actually worked.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is just as clueless as her boss. She had this to say: “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. This was one individual, literally, of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year. And he was stopped before any damage could be done.”
What??
Janet, out of the thousands who fly, there was only one who tried to blow up a plane and he almost succeeded. Here is the only reason Flight 253 isn’t laying on the ground, in pieces, with everyone dead:ROMULUS, Mich. — An attempted terrorist attack on a Christmas Day flight began with a pop and a puff of smoke — sending passengers scrambling to subdue a Nigerian man who claimed to be acting on orders from Al Qaeda to blow up the airliner, officials and travelers said.
Are we ever going to get a clue about Islamic terrorist?

WASHINGTON — Despite the ease with which an alleged terrorist boarded a Detroit-bound flight with explosives, the Obama administration says the incident shows the U.S. aviation security system worked yet has ordered investigations into how travelers are placed on watch lists and explosives are detected on passengers.

“The investigation will look backwards and figure out if any signs were missed, if any procedures can be changed,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on ABC’s “This Week”.

Billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when commercial airliners were hijacked and used as weapons.

Much of that money has gone toward training and equipment that some security experts say could have detected the explosive device the 23-year-old Nigerian man is believed to have hidden on his body on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

“One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday morning on CNN.

“This was one individual, literally, of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year,” Napolitano said. “And he was stopped before any damage could be done.”

But the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee took issue with Napolitano’s assessment.

Airport security “failed in every respect,” Rep. Peter King of New York said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked.”

Investigators are piecing together Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s brazen attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Dec. 25. Law enforcement officials say he tucked below his waist a small bag holding his potentially deadly concoction of liquid and powder explosive material.

Harold Demuren, the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, says Abdulmutallab’s ticket came from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana. Demuren said Monday that Abdulmutallab bought the $2,831 round-trip ticket from Lagos, Nigeria, to Detroit via Amsterdam on Dec. 16.

Demuren declined to comment about Abdulmutallab’s travels in the days before he boarded his Dec. 24 flight from Lagos to Detroit via Amsterdam, saying FBI agents and Nigerian officials view the information as “sensitive.” He says Abdulmutallab checked into his flight with only a small carryon bag.

Abdulmutallab had been placed in a U.S. database of people suspected of terrorist ties in November, but there was not enough information about his activity that would place him on a watch list that could have kept him from flying.

However, British officials placed Abdulmutallab’s name on a U.K. watch list after he was refused a student visa in May.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson added that police and security services are looking at whether Abdulmutallab was radicalized in Britain.

12.25.09

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”Luke 2:1-7 (New International Version)

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
” ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”Matthew 2:1-12 (New International Version)

We hope that everyone has a very happy and safe Christmas. With the terrible winter storm hitting our nation, please be extra careful if you need to travel this year.
Merry Christmas and God Bless All of You!!
-Steve and Missi

12.24.09

When you taxes go sky high, as they most certainly will, or your small business employer lays you off because he can’t afford to pay for your health insurance, please remember that it was the Democrats who did it to you. Please try to have better than the typical American 30 second attention span.
And for those whom this legislation is supposedly designed to help, please remember that it was the Democrats who cut Medicare. It was the Democrats who drove your doctor out of business. It was the Democrats who in one hand demanded that the legislation be passed overnight because of it’s importance, but wrote it so it won;t take affect until after the 2012 elections.
Remember that it was the Democrats who held midnight votes on weekends and holidays in order to make sure you were not aware of what they were doing.
Please remember this was all the Democrats, and vote accordingly.

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a health insurance overhaul on Thursday morning, 60-39, as both Democrats and Republicans held unified in their positions on the massive bill that mandates coverage for about 9 percent of the U.S. population.

All 58 Democrats and two independents supported the $871 billion, 10-year package that aims to cover about 30 million Americans. Thirty-nine of 40 Republicans rejected the bill. Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, did not vote.

Senate lawmakers moved quickly after the vote to one more bill — a hike in the debt ceiling needed to prevent a U.S. default on loans — passing it on a 60-39 vote before scattering across the nation ahead of their Christmas break.

Facing the certainty that Senate Democrats were lined up to pass the landmark legislation, Republican senators said they are resolved to fight to the bitter end to prevent the bill from being implemented.

“That’s the clear will of the American people and we’re going to fight on their behalf,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said just moments before the vote.

McConnell added that he hoped that voters would use the congressional break between Dec. 24 and Jan. 19, when the Senate returns, to appeal to lawmakers to stop the bill before the unpopular bill becomes law. The House returns on Jan. 12.

Now that both the House of Representatives and Senate have finished their votes — the House passed its version in November — the two chambers must reconcile their starkly different bills.

Some congressional offices have been floating the idea that the House accept the Senate version whole cloth in order to get it to President Obama’s desk in time for the State of the Union address, but it was unclear whether that would be acceptable to many House Democrats, and the negotiations could slip into February.

Vice President Joe Biden returned to his old haunt to preside over the historic vote as president of the Senate, and was greeted warmly by former colleagues from both sides of the aisle. But in his role atop the dais, Biden listened while McConnell excoriated the legislation.

“Many people on this side who are going to support this bill don’t like it. Otherwise Democratic leaders would not have had such a tough time rounding up votes,” McConnell said, noting that Democratic leaders held votes in the “middle of the night, at the crack of dawn, overnight, in the middle of a blizzard” and on Christmas eve.

The Senate measure, in addition to extending coverage to millions of people who lack it, would ban the insurance industry from denying benefits or charging higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the bill will reduce deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years, an estimate that assumes lawmakers carry through on hundreds of billions of dollars in planned cuts to insurance companies and doctors, hospitals and others who treat Medicare patients.

For the first time the government would require nearly every American to carry insurance, and subsidies would be provided to help low-income people do so. Employers would be induced to cover their employees through a combination of tax credits and penalties.

Unlike the House, the Senate measure omits a government-run insurance option, which liberals favored to apply pressure on private insurers but Democratic moderates opposed as an unwarranted federal intrusion.

Thank goodness for man-made global warming. Think how bad this would be without it.
OK, I’m making a joke here. What isn’t a joke is how the global warming alarmist will try to spin this in order to try to convince people that it’s a sign of man-made global warming, since it seems that any type of weather can be used by them to “prove” man-made global warming. What isn’t a joke is the amount of money pledged by our government, who is already massively in debt, to fight a problem that doesn’t exist.
How does anyone, with even an ounce of logic, believe in man-made global warming after all of the evidence to the contrary? After leaked emails from so called “experts” urging cover-ups, destruction of data that didn’t support their position and ostracism of those who disagreed, who can possibly believe? Even Wikipedia was modified and opposing contributors shut out to make “man-made” global warming happen.
The truth is, it’s all about money. Legitimate research is out the door and greed is in, at any cost. When grant money is on the line, these people will make the data say anything necessary to keep the dollars rolling in.
Do you believe in man-made global warming? Maybe it’s time to rethink your position.

A dangerous and multifaceted winter storm will continue to rapidly intensify as it heads out of Texas today taking a position over the Missouri Valley by tonight.

This storm promises to bring widespread travel problems to a large chunk of the country just in time for the Christmas holiday.

Snow will fall to the north and west of the storm track with heavy snow likely throughout the Plains states along with the Upper Midwest.

Snow fall amounts by Friday afternoon in excess of one foot are likely from eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin.

12.23.09

There has been a positive development with Rifqa Bary, the teen who ran away from home, in fear of her life, after she converted from Islam to Christianity. Recently, she was going to forced to meet with her parents, so they could “explain” Islam to her. It now appears that won’t be happening any time soon, if it happens at all.
Please continue to pray for this young lady.

The magistrate in the Rifqa Bary case ruled today that the 17-year-old who ran away from her Columbus home in July does not have to sit down for mediation with her parents.

There were several issues resolved today at the hearing in Franklin County Juvenile Court, including:

* Mediation. Magistrate Mary Goodrich said issues now being discussed would best be resolved with individual counseling instead of group mediation.
* Third-party messages. Bary’s parents don’t want her to receive any cards or letters directly, and had filed a motion that any messages first go to Franklin County Children Services. Omar Tarazi, the family’s attorney, withdrew that motion today.
* Rifqa’s mental health. Assistant County Prosecutor Chris Julian said that a counselor was trying to determine whether 17-year-old, whose full name is Fathima Rifqa Bary, has post-traumatic stress disorder.

In July, Rifqa ran away and moved in with two pastors — a married couple — in Orlando, Fla., whom she had met on the Internet.

Rifqa said her father, Mohamed Bary, had threatened to kill her for leaving Islam — the family religion — for Christianity.

Authorities in Florida and Ohio could find no credible threat to her safety, and she returned to Franklin County on Oct. 27 and has been living in a foster home.

A case plan that Franklin County Children Services filed recently with the court says the family should try to work out its differences, with the goal of having Rifqa move back in with her parents. But only Children Services signed the plan, which is not binding unless it becomes a court order.

One aspect of the health care overhaul is the fact that it doesn’t take affect until 2014. If it so very important to do this so overhaul, why would the Democrats want it to take so much time implementing it?
Now, on top of that oddity, we have the overhaul tapping our money almost immediately. Many people will be heavily taxed well before the so-called benefits of this plan even start to show up.
Why are the Democrats being so underhanded about this.

WASHINGTON — The costs of health care reform being pushed through Congress by Democrats will be felt long before the benefits.

Proposed taxes and fees on upper-income earners, insurers, even tanning parlors, take effect quickly. So would Medicare cuts.

Benefits, such as subsidies for lower middle-income households, consumer protections for all, and eliminating the prescription coverage gap for seniors, come gradually.

“There’s going to be an expectations gap, no question about that,” said Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “People are going to see their premiums and out-of-pocket costs go up before the tangible benefits kick in.”

Most of the 30 million uninsured helped by the bill won’t get coverage until 2013 at the earliest, well after the next presidential election.

More than two-thirds of Americans get their coverage through large employer plans and their premiums won’t go up because of the legislation, according to number crunchers at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

For people who buy their own insurance policies — about one of every six Americans — premiums will go up. But that’s for better benefits prescribed under the legislation. And about half of them would get tax credits to substantially lower their costs.

As Senate Democrats cleared the second of three 60-vote procedural hurdles, over unanimous GOP opposition Tuesday, it looked like the White House was already celebrating. “Health care reform is not a matter of if, health care reform now is a matter of when, and I think the president is enormously encouraged by that,” declared spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Republicans, bolstered by opinion polls that show a majority of Americans opposed to the legislation, aimed their fire at dozens of deals Democratic leaders cut to line up the 60 votes needed in the Senate. “Senator so-and-so may have gotten his deal,” said GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “But the American people haven’t signed off.”

If the Senate passes the bill Thursday, as now seems likely, the pressure will be on Democrats to quickly sort out House and Senate differences and get final legislation to Obama’s desk. That would end a divisive debate that has soured the public mood.

But there are significant differences between the bills, including stricter abortion language in the House version as well as a government-run insurance plan that is missing from the Senate package. The Senate plan also embraces a tax on high-value insurance plans, something strongly opposed by unions and many House Democrats.

One thing that won’t emerge in the end is a government takeover of health care. The government-run insurance plan some liberals were hoping would be a step to Medicare-for-all lacks support in the Senate. If negotiators put it back, moderate Democrats in the Senate say they’ll oppose the final bill. And Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., needs every one of his party’s 60 votes.

Instead, the final package could end up looking like the Medicare prescription drug benefit, delivered through private insurance companies but subsidized and regulated by the government.

Just as seniors now pick their drug coverage from a range of private plans, Americans who were previously uninsured would select brand-name coverage through a new kind of insurance supermarket called an exchange. As seniors do today, they would have to pay part of the cost themselves. Most people with employer coverage wouldn’t need to go to the exchange.

The exchanges could be national, regional or state-based. They’d be up and running in 2013 under the House bill, a year later in the Senate version. Around that same time, other major changes would snap into place:

–Health insurance companies would be prohibited from denying coverage to people with health problems, or charging them more.

–For the first time, Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, Medicare or Medicaid, or by buying it themselves. Refusal would bring fines, except in cases of financial hardship.

–Federal subsidies would start flowing to individuals and small businesses buying coverage in the exchange, helping them afford the premiums.

–Most employers would be required to offer coverage or pay a tax, under the House bill. In the Senate version, employers would get a bill if any of their workers got subsidized coverage in the exchange.

–Medicaid coverage would be expanded to pick up millions more living near the poverty line.

Debated since President Harry Truman’s administration, health care overhaul would finally be in place. An estimated 94 percent to 96 percent of Americans, not counting illegal immigrants, would have coverage.

But there’s a catch.

Cost is the Achilles’ heel of the whole complicated undertaking. To keep the cost of the bill at around $1 trillion over 10 years, lawmakers had to limit subsidies for people seeking coverage through the exchange.

The aid tapers off dramatically for households with solid middle-class incomes. A family of four making $66,000 a year would still have to spend about 10 percent of its income on premiums — less than a mortgage but more than a car payment. And that’s without counting copayments and deductibles. Several million otherwise eligible Americans could still be priced out.

Altman, the Kaiser Foundation expert, thinks Democrats won’t be able to resist the temptation to keep tinkering with the legislation to improve or speed up coverage. “The legislation is going to be out there, and politics can change,” he said. “There’s a potential for modification and amendment.”

As far as Jewish lifecycle events go, there is no doubt that childbirth is the ultimate simcha that a woman and her family can ever experience. A new Jewish life has entered this world through the kindness of Hashem, and with great excitement and awe we revel in this incredible miracle. For some women, however, the days, weeks and months following childbirth can be a personally painful and daunting time, as they fall victim to unyielding hormonal upheavals that result in “the baby blues”, postpartum depression and in some rare cases postpartum psychosis.

In this recently published book entitled, “Delivery Form Darkness” (Feldheim Publishers 2009), the Jerusalem based authors, Rabbi Baruch Finkelstein and his wife Michal along with certified nurse-midwife and therapist, Doreen Winter, present a most sensitive yet pragmatic guide on the modalities of prevention and treatment of PPD. Integrating both halachic and medical concepts, the authors make it abundantly clear that PPD and its related disorders are in no way reflective of a mother’s general mental state, nor does it serve as an ominous indication of her abilities to nurture her child, but rather they offer evidence that PPD needs to be cogently understood and addressed with concrete intervention. The taboo surrounding this most enigmatic of ailments often causes families a great deal of shame and guilt. In the forward to this book, renowned psychiatrist and author, Rabbi Avraham Twerski says, “Because the symptoms of postpartum depression are behavorial, many people think of them as being due to a mental abnormality. Given the stigma that this carries, the symptoms are often overlooked or explained away.”

The authors explain that while there are psychosocial components that make some women genetically pre-disposed to PPD, the major culprits are hormonal in nature that occur during pregnancy, along with both a thyroid and adrenal link as well. Family and communal support along with compassionate and educated health care professionals can make all the difference in the world in helping a woman and her family recognize that PPD is not an insurmountable obstacle on the highway to recovery. Addressing the issues of turmoil and pain that husbands often experience as a result of their spouses’ PPD, this book allows them to tell their stories in their own words, giving a personal face to the potential tragedy that can result if PPD is left untreated.

With 80% of all new mothers experiencing the “baby blues” and 15 to 20 percent being beset with PPD and in one in a thousand women being diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, the authors sound a clarion call to the Orthodox Jewish world to reach out with urgency and alacrity to those suffering. Mothers often experience daily bouts of anger, irritability, melancholia, moodiness and feel terribly frightened, agitated and distraught. An intense fear of death, or going crazy and loss of control combined with suicidal ideations are also prevalent in some cases as the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are all encompassing.

In salient detail, the authors describe the origins of hormonal shifts in pregnancy and the post partum period while also emphasizing environmental causes such as societally induced stress related factors. In some cases, medical treatments such as the use of anti-depressants have proven effective along with therapy, but the authors don’t stop there. They courageously suggest holistic approaches as well including Traditional Chinese Medicine, the use of herbs, vitamins and minerals as well as establishing a regime of the highest standards in nutrition and exercise.

Throughout this often arduous journey to recovery from PPD, we are consistently reminded by the authors that a woman’s connection to Hashem must be encouraged and bolstered as the most conducive trajectory to complete healing lies within a healthy spiritual mindset. Mothers are advised to, “Talk to Hashem out loud. Find time every day to talk to Hashem as if you were talking to a friend. Hashem listens. Tell Hashem everything. Tell Him how you feel about yourself, your family, your relationship with Him. Tell Hashem about your day, your plans, your moods. Tell Hashem your deepest fears and desires. This will be an enlightening and rejuvenating experience.” The cathartic benefits of the recitation of Tehillim will resonate in the hearts of women as we learn that they very same feelings of joy, sorrow, frustration, humiliation, anger, sadness and regret were also part and parcel of the life of the sweet singer of Israel, King David, who penned the words that we find here. Consulting rabbinic and halachic authorities on such issues as choosing the right therapist are earnestly discussed as well as sensitive issues such as the use of birth control.

The reader will be left with a sanguine conclusion as the authors offer the sagacious wisdom of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov who viewed depression as “very damaging” but also acknowledged depression as a “growth stage”. He said, “Know that all of the descents, breakdowns and confusion are required in order to enter the gates of holiness, and all the great tzaddikim went through them… All falls are necessary for the ascent.”

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog

That’s right, folks: you can add winter storms to the neverending list of things Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s bogeyman is now responsible for.

Of course this isn’t at all surprising, for Romm blamed the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse on global warming.

Potentially just as interesting was how Romm initially tried to downplay the severity of this storm in his article published Sunday:

As for the East Coast storm, my home in DC did get 18 inches of snow — although if this had been a true blizzard, I doubt my flight from Copenhagen on Saturday would have been allowed to land in Dulles airport and I wouldn’t of been able to get home 12 hours after I left Denmark. […]

If having snow around the holidays on the East Coast were strange, I doubt the song “White Christmas” would have been written.

So, this WASN’T an extreme event? Not so fast:

The Capital Weather Gang reports that the DC snowstorm has set multiple records (previous in parentheses):

Interesting, wouldn’t you agree? First he said, “Nothing to see here. Move along.”

Then he showed actual data proving the weather event was historic.

Kind of like Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) claiming he voted for war funding before he voted against it!

But Romm wasn’t done:

So it is inane for anyone in the media to cite this massive DC snowstorm as somehow counterintuitive or ironic against the backdrop of Obama’s Copenhagen deal.
In fact, this record-breaking snowstorm is pretty much precisely what climate science predicts.

And therein lies the rub, for alarmists like Romm and the rest of his ilk have stacked the deck so that no matter what happens with the weather, it’s caused by global warming:

More proof of manipulation of media and informational sources in order to push the man-made global warming farce, this time in Wikipedia.

A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period – something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message.

Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post’s Lawrence Solomon reports.

The warming period is said to have improved agriculture and increased life spans, but scientists at the center of the Climategate e-mail scandal believed the era undermined their goal of spreading concern about global warming as it pertains to today’s climate.

Solomon noted the warming period presented a dilemma long before the Climategate e-mail scandal.

Briffa and other scientists, with the help of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published a well-known symbol of their movement: the hockey stick chart, an illustration reproduced in textbooks, media reports and the pages of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, report.

However, the graph showed stable temperatures over the last 1,000 years and omitted any indication of the warming period.

“But the U.N.’s official verdict that the Medieval Warm Period had not existed did not erase the countless schoolbooks, encyclopedias, and other scholarly sources that claimed it had,” Solomon wrote. “Rewriting those would take decades, time that the band members didn’t have if they were to save the globe from warming.”

A 1995 e-mail predating the recent Climate Research Unit scandal was sent to geophysicist David Deming. A major climate-change researcher told Deming, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

Some scientists later expressed concern about erasing the period.

One chief practitioner identified as Keith Briffa, said in a Sept. 22, 1999, e-mail, “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. … I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.”

Briffa and other scientists, with the help of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published a well-known symbol of their movement: the hockey stick chart, an illustration reproduced in textbooks, media reports and the pages of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, report.

However, the graph showed stable temperatures over the last 1,000 years and omitted any indication of the warming period.

“But the U.N.’s official verdict that the Medieval Warm Period had not existed did not erase the countless schoolbooks, encyclopedias, and other scholarly sources that claimed it had,” Solomon wrote. “Rewriting those would take decades, time that the band members didn’t have if they were to save the globe from warming.”

Solomon revealed that Connolley, one man in the nine-member team who is a U.K. scientist, a software engineer and Green Party activist, took control of Wikipedia’s entries to see that any trace of the true climate history would be erased.

Beginning in February 2003, Connolley rewrote Wikipedia entries on global warming, the greenhouse effect, the instrumental temperature record, the urban heat island, on climate models and on global cooling, according to the report. In February, he began editing the Little Ice Age. By August, he began to rewrite history without the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned to the hockey-stick chart.

“He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band,” Solomon explains. “Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.”

Through his role as a Wikipedia administrator, Connolley is said to have created or rewritten 5,428 unique Wikipedia entries.

“When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it – more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand,” Solomon wrote. “When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred – over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions.”

Through his control of the Wikipedia pages, Connolley is said to have “turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.”

Facts about the Medieval Warm Period and criticism of global warming doctrine were purportedly scrubbed from Wikipedia’s pages.

“With the release of the Climategate e-mails, the disappearing trick has been exposed,” Solomon declared. “The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.”

A Wikipedia arbitration committee has stated in the past: “William M. Connolley has, on a number of occasions, misused his administrator tools by acting while involved.”

12.21.09

I fear that those who still believe in man-made global warming are in the minority these days. After ClimateGate and the winter we’ve had so far (see here, here and http://www.weather.com/newscenter/stormwatch/), I think you believers need to reevaluate your thinking.

Around 2,000 passengers were trapped in the Channel Tunnel overnight as four Eurostar trains broke down amid freezing temperatures that have brought travel chaos to Britain.

It is thought trains – all headed to London from Paris – failed as they left the cold air in northern France and entered the warmer air inside the tunnel.

Some passengers were stuck for 11 hours and two of the trains had no heating or lighting.

A Dallas-area college has banned religious projects from its ceramics classes.

“Joe Mitchell, our client, liked to make crosses and menorahs and other types of religious items,” [Hiram Sasser of Liberty Legal Institute] explains, “and he was banned from doing that by college officials because they did not like the religious content of those crosses and menorahs.”

“[College officials] compared the making of crosses and menorahs to something offensive like a swastika — and they said we can’t have swastikas and we can’t have these crosses or menorahs either,” says Sasser. “And so this is blatant religious discrimination.”